Live Each Day As If It Is Your Last Day On Earth!

One of my beautiful, sweet kitties died abruptly, which started a chain of events that gave me a deepening understanding of how true it is that life is best lived in the present. I was shattered by losing my dear animal friend. A couple days later, an acquaintance hit a raccoon, and my heart broke open again. The next day, I barely missed hitting a cat with my own car.

Next, I went on a journey to Los Angeles and back. In both directions I witnessed accident after accident after accident, an unusual number of them, where it was absolutely certain that people had died instantly. Their lives were over as quick as the snap of a finger, their plans and goals suddenly rendered meaningless and unimportant. I was heart broken for them and their loved ones.

At that point I knew something was up and that a message was trying to get through from somewhere deep inside me. It was showing up everywhere in my outside world. I was starting to feel as if I was in the twilight zone where events were being choreographed in a weird way just for me. What was the message? I wanted to understand. What struck me was how easily instant death could happen to me, too. All my hopes and dreams, desires and wishes, would be suddenly very irrelevant to the reality of my soul.

I was always aware of how quickly life could be over, and I did have a policy of keeping in mind that all my “business” on earth was relatively unimportant. I was quite aware that the realities of my soul are my most important business on Earth and therefore I made spiritual unfoldment my primary focus in life. However, a deeper realization has come forth, like another peeling of the ever-unfolding onion that we as humans are. The peeling and the deep meaning seems to never end in any given lifetime, no matter how much mastery has been achieved.

As I arrived home, after witnessing all the death events, I meditated on what it meant to me. Death is the ultimate freedom, a place of limitlessness. Of course, I’m not in a rush to experience it, but it is inevitable and it doesn’t frighten me, especially since I vividly remember many past lives and many past deaths. It was just another part of the journey, but how was I to apply that knowledge to my life?

Strangely, through this contemplation I found myself very peaceful. I found myself doing all my daily activities in a more focused and present way, pretending that I didn’t have very long to be here. I found myself living each day as my last. Even mundane activities, like washing dishes and such, took on a new richness. I knew divinity had set in. I found myself so much more alert, experiencing how intense and beautiful it is to be immersed in the Earth dream. How sweet all this is!

I found myself talking to others as if it was their last day on earth too! I was truly in the present moment, with no plan, goals, desires, or wishes. Ahhhh! The freedom of it! For the first time in my life, it was not important that I reach any kind of goal, not even enlightenment, that ever so elusive goal many of us have. For the first time, I was truly satisfied with right where I was, and that is the truth of enlightenment, to just be awake in the dream, paying attention, with a still mind that has no spin on the future or the past. When I stopped seeking it and just became present, enlightenment was “reached.”

Living my life as if each day was my last had a sobering effect. If I knew it was my kitty’s last day, I would have played with him when he asked me to instead of being too busy. It really brought things into perspective as to what is truly important and what is not. His death showed me a respect for life on Earth, painful or sweet as it might be, that I didn’t have quite as deeply as before. Most importantly, living my life as if I had already died, or would in only a few hours, has shown me how the ultimate freedom can actually be had while still alive on the Earth!